


Still Breathing Bodies

by mistynights



Category: Love Death + Robots
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drabble Collection, Gen, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 09:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistynights/pseuds/mistynights
Summary: Four characters that have to get used to new and old bodies.





	Still Breathing Bodies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaiserdeDiez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaiserdeDiez/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Все еще дышащие тела](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22417348) by [bitari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitari/pseuds/bitari), [WTF_Love_Death_Robots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Love_Death_Robots/pseuds/WTF_Love_Death_Robots)



> Title from Xerath - Passenger  
> I really wasn't sure which of the shorts to pick, so I did something small for some of my favorite ones. I hope that's alright and that you enjoy reading what I did.

**1\. Sonnie’s Edge**

Ivrina is the first to say it. They can't have a Beastie and not fight with it. People would get suspicious. Sonnie doesn't like that she's right, but she is. Fighters will start offering money to buy their Beastie, to buy her, and she can't afford it.

That doesn't mean she likes the idea of fighting for her life. She hates it. Once upon a time, before the assault, before Khanivore, she would have loved to fight, to feel the adrenaline. Back then, Sonnie would have done anything to feel that.

Back then, she could have never guessed everything that could happen to her.

Now, as she steps into the arena for her first fight, she feels the fear cursing through her veins. The crowd's screams deafen her, make her eyes cloud a bit.

And then she sees her opponent and Sonnie has to fight the urge to freeze in place, to take the beating and let everything be done for. It's a stupid urge anyways. She doesn't want to die, she knows that, has known since she clung to dear life after the attack.

She gives her opponent one last glance before focusing on the fight. She trusts this body, trust Khanivore in a way she trust few. And now, despite the fear and the soaring of her blood, she launches, claws ready for a fight.

***

**2\. Good Hunting**

Yan can feel the air against her body as she runs through the city's roofs. Liang's new body for her feels different from her true form, the form she lost so long ago, but it feels right. Not as wrong as the Governor's body, at the very least.

The wind feels different too, but that she knew from before. She could feel it from the moment the English started building their machines. She could feel the changes as the air and the land that were once familiar became strangers.

She tried to explain it to Liang before she lost her true form. He nodded, then, mentioned how the city was changing, but she knew he didn't understand. Not in the way she did. He couldn't feel the difference as clearly as she could, couldn't feel the magic slowly thinning until nothing remained.

But he could understand her pain, and that was all Yan could ask for. This new body, it was more than Yan ever imagined when the two of them became friends. And yet.

She can feel the wind soaring around her as she leaps from one rooftop to another. She can feel the anticipation as she nears her prey. The first of many, if the excitement deep inside her is anything to go by.

***

**3\. Helping Hand**

Alex looks at the new hand with a frown on her face. Next to her, Bill frowns too. Theoretically speaking, it’s a great hand. Latest tech they could get out here, great for work like the one Alex often has to do. In the doctor’s table some days ago, it also looked great, shiny and new and durable. It’s a great hand

But there’s something about seeing attached to her body now, after everything that happened during the mission, after seeing her own hand float away in space, after feeling it slowly freeze beyond repair that makes Alex’s skin crawl.

She wants to like the hand, she really does. Bill has been hyping about it since the doctor first informed them of the prosthetic. And so has Alex, in a way. A different way, though.

Having a hand is useful in her line of work. It’s useful in general, but she’s thinking of specifics. Having a new hand means she won’t get discharged, which is also good. She doesn’t want to leave the station.

That part has become a bit of a problem. She doesn’t want to get sent back home, but her sight goes blurry just by looking at the space around them. The thought of going back into a spaceship, back outside into the vast nothingness of space, back to working out there, terrifies her in a way few things do.

But she can’t accept that. Space is her life, has been since she was a kid. So she can’t accept being afraid of it.

Alex looks at the new hand with a frown on her face. Glaring at it, blaming it, is easier than accepting what goes through her mind.

***

**4\. Zima Blue**

Zima jumps into the pool and everything feels almost like finding the inner peace humans sometimes talk so much about. It feels like going back to easier times, to better times. It’s what he wanted when he first started planning his final piece.

 He swims the first lap and can still feel the eyes of the people around him. The looks of awe and mild confusion of all those who chose to come, who travelled across the galaxy to see him.

A part of him, a small, easy to ignore part of him, almost wants to stop the plan, to continue the life he’s been living so far. But Zima is a man —machine— who doesn’t easily change his mind. He never has. Maybe it’s part of his original programing, maybe something he developed on his own with time. He doesn’t know. Probably never will, now that he’s decided to stay here forever.

Pieces start to disassemble from his body with the second lap. The sensation is odd, but not unpleasant in the grand scheme of things. Whatever discomfort he feels gets shoved to the back of his mind —if he even has one— with a reminder that this is for a grater purpose.

Pieces disassemble, and with each one, he feels closer to his objective, closer to what he’s been trying to achieve all this time.

The last piece floats away and he is left there, as nothing more than a small pool cleaning robot. If he still had his humanoid form, Zima would sigh in relief as he moves towards the border and starts cleaning.

He feels free, in a way. Feels like he’s gone back to his origins, to his purpose.  And maybe he feels a pang of longing for the life he built, maybe he can detect a spark of regret in the back of his mind. But, as he moves from one tile to the next, he feels himself fill up with peace. This is what he was meant to be from the beginning, nothing more. He’s found his original purpose, and he can rest now.


End file.
